Styrofoam set

Here is a quick example of what you can do with a little bit of styrofoam and paint.

some foam pieces

Take a few styrofoam set pieces. Arrange them to look like something cool.

modular pieces

The pieces are modular so they can be moved around for this shot and can be stored for the next shot.

desired set

I like this shot. When you arrange your pieces how you want them, take a ton of photos. Not all of the background needs to be filled in. It is always nice to have it all in place, but if there are some places you have no styrofoam piece then you can fill it in in photoshop later.

greenscreen

You can fill in the blank areas with green if you wish. Then you can fill the empty areas with painted in filler.

photoshopped

It is not perfect, but it will do for this shot. Now you can adjust the lighting digitally as well if your lighting in real life was not done to your liking.

lit

In my shot, a torch is burning. Then a water arrow is shot, and then it goes dark.

dark

As always, the more pieces that you can create in real life the better it will look. The lighting will look better if done in real life as well. But tons of stuff can be done if you have some photoshop skills. So, for a three second shot, we accomplished it with a few chunks of styrofoam, and a few minutes in photoshop.